


An X on the Calendar

by BekahRose



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I'm Sorry, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, My First Work in This Fandom, Non-Consensual Drug Use
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 11:41:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17559725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BekahRose/pseuds/BekahRose
Summary: “You’ve been fine these last, what? Seven weeks?” He asked, though he knew it to be true, and he didn’t have to look at the calendar that Betty had marked with giant red Xs. “You’re not going to hurt anyone, Betty.”





	An X on the Calendar

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first tippy-toe dance into the world that is Riverdale, so please forgive me if the characters are somewhat OOC - I'm still fiddling around in an attempt to get the voices just right. This started out as one thing (which is going to be moved to a fic of its own eventually), and turned into something quite different, and I started writing in the middle of season 2, before the Black Hood's reveal, so I'm taking some serious liberties with timelines. Unbeta'ed. Please be polite if you spot a mistake. Title taken from 'The Calendar' by Panic! At the Disco.
> 
> Flames are printed off, and fed to the ever rambunctious Spike and Merlin.

“They’ll be back tomorrow,” Jughead murmured, his long fingers trailing down the length of Betty’s spine.

“Mmm, who?” Betty replied with a sleepy moan.

“Everyone,” Jughead whispered, reluctant to break the peace that had settled over Betty’s room. “Archie, Veronica... your mom.” Jughead winced even as the words left his mouth. He could see as all the muscles in Betty’s back tightened when reality came crashing into the room with all the subtlety of Cheryl Blossom.

“Jug,” she groaned, pushing herself up to face him. “I can’t…” she rolled her eyes as his gaze dropped to her chest, the pale blue cotton of her sheets bunching around her waist. “Should I get dressed for us to have this conversation?” she snarked lightly, causing his gaze to fly to hers.

“Betts…” he trailed off.

“I can’t go back to what I was like before…” she trailed off.

“Betty,” Jughead covered her hand with one of his and squeezed tightly. “I promise you that that is not going to happen.”

Betty shook her head and lifted a shaking hand to her throat. “What if… what if he was right? What if I hurt someone?”

Jughead swallowed the boiling rage that threatened to spill out. “You’ve been fine these last, what? Seven weeks?” He asked, though he knew it to be true, and he didn’t have to look at the calendar that Betty had marked with giant red Xs. “You’re not going to hurt anyone, Betty.” He ducked his head and pressed his lips to hers in a hard kiss, an attempt to stop the doubt from creeping into the room they’d made their safe haven during the past two months.

****

**_June 3rd, seven weeks ago..._ **

Jughead lifted his head from his laptop as the bell above the door to Pop’s jangled, his stomach did a slow flip as Betty walked in, her normally bright eyes furtively scanning the shop as she hurried to the counter and grabbed the paper bag Pop held out to her before dropping a handful of crumpled notes on the counter and scurrying back out. Pop collected the money and looked around the shop, his eyes meeting Jughead’s, brow raised in curiosity. 

Jughead sat back and shrugged. Betty wasn’t his to worry after anymore (not that it stopped him). The end of spring heralded the end of their sophomore year and school would be out soon enough. She was probably tired; finals had taken their toll on everyone, and even more so for Betty as she’d juggled her studying with tracking down her sister, and trying her damnedest to come to terms with being related to the Blossoms, and the tangled web of lies _that_ revelation had led to. He opened his mouth to tell Pop he’d check on her at school, the next time he saw her, but clamped his mouth shut. They hadn’t spoken since winterbreak, when she’d delivered his Christmas present and told him that whatever had been sprouting between them, was over. Jughead slumped back into his seat and lifted his coffee cup in an attempt to avoid the disappointment he could feel in Pop’s gaze. This was not his responsibility, damnit.

When Pop finally turned away, shaking his head, Jughead swallowed down the growl that was forming in his chest, slammed his laptop closed before shoving it in his bag and heading for the door to the diner. He might not be privy to the machinations of Betty’s life any more, but he knew someone who was, and he knew that they’d do everything they could to make sure Betty was okay.

*

“He was drugging her, Jug.” Veronica said softly, her brow furrowed as she looked to where Archie had stalked off after declaring he wouldn’t be the one to betray Betty’s trust.

“He what?” Jughead asked, incredulous. 

“Her… Mr Cooper. He was drugging her and screwing with her head.” Veronica continued quietly, thankful that the foyer of the Pembrooke was quieter than a school yard in mid-summer. “He was feeding her celexa and filling her head with bullshit.” Veronica wrapped her arms around herself, trying to hold herself together. “She only found out after she was hospitalised during spring break. She um…” Veronica swallowed and closed her eyes.

Jughead’s stomach was roiling and the urge to shatter the silence of the Pembrooke lobby was palpable. “Veronica,” he began, his throat tight.

“We were at a Vixen’s practice and she collapsed, started convulsing.” She quickly wiped at her eyes before blinking rapidly. “Cheryl… it doesn’t matter what Cheryl said, she was just… being a bitch. But we got her to the hospital, and when we couldn’t tell them what she’d taken, they ran a… a toxicology report?” She shook her head, trying to remember a night she so desperately wanted to forget.

“Yeah, they screen a patient’s blood, looking for drugs.” Jughead sniffed. He wanted to smash Hal Cooper’s face in.

“Right,” Veronica murmured. “That’s when they found out she’d been taking way too much, and on top of the adderall… it all just kinda caught up with her.” 

“Is she… is she gonna be okay?”

“I think so,” Veronica replied. “But it’s gonna take a while. He told her she was a danger to herself, to others. Mrs Cooper kicked him out, changed the locks and Sheriff Keller arrested him.”

“When did-” Jughead began but was cut off.

“We think just after the whole thing with Chuck. We… we think he saw the video, the _whole_ video.” Veronica shrugged. She barrelled ahead as Jughead opened his mouth to speak. “She didn’t want to tell anyone. The only people who know are Cheryl, Archie and me. The other girls, they just… they just think maybe she was burning herself out, ya know?”

Jughead felt sick. He wanted to rail at Veronica and Archie-Archie in particular. The three of them had been friends since time immemorial, they had started to pull away once, towards the end of freshman year, but it had been getting better… until Betty had put an end to their fledgling relationship. He reached up and ripped his beanie from his head, his fingers twisting through his dark locks. There was so much he wanted to ask, to say… to do. 

“Do you think,” Jughead said softly, “I could-”

“Have stopped it?” Veronica shook her head. “I’m her best friend, Jug and I couldn’t stop it. I could see she was… different. Especially after you guys… stopped.”

“Ronnie,” Archie’s voice called to her from the bank of elevators. Jughead could hear the impatience in his friend’s tone.

“No, Archie!” Veronica spun to face him, her dark eyes flashing and Jughead took a hesitant step back. “I am telling Jughead everything, I don’t care if you think it’s a breach of trust! None of us noticed that our friend was drowning because she pushed us all away, including you, Archie! Maybe if Jughead had been there, if we’d pulled him in, he would have seen…” Veronica’s voice broke and even as Jughead reached out to grab her shoulder, Archie was there, pulling her close.

He swallowed thickly as he watched Archie hold his girlfriend, soothe her with quiet nothings and gentle touches and fought the green-eyed monster of jealousy back into its box. He had had that with Betty, or, they had been working towards that. He was mentally kicking himself for not fighting harder for her; he hated that he’d taken her at her word. He met Archie’s glare with one of his own, refusing to be cowed by the redhead or his anger.

“Veronica,” Jughead said softly, let his hand squeeze her shoulder once before dropping to his side. “Thank you. I’m… I’m sorry I wasn’t there.”

“Yeah, well…” she sniffled and moved out of Archie’s embrace, a quick wipe of her cheeks and she spun to face him, her hands on her hips. “What the hell are you gonna do about, Jones?” She raised an imperious eyebrow at him.

Jughead froze under that look, his brain clicking into overdrive. For the first time since Christmas, he felt something pull at the corner of his mouth, and he gave Veronica the tiniest of smirks. He darted forward and kissed her cheek before shoving his beaning back down on his head and turning to make his way out of the building.

“Jughead!” Archie’s voice called after him, and he turned, hand on the door to the Pembroke. “Mrs Cooper’s… well…”

Jughead’s grin grew bigger, he nodded, understanding perfectly. Alice Cooper had lost one daughter to Hal Cooper’s drive to keep the family from scandal and almost lost another, she had circled the wagons and he doubted anyone was getting in to see Betty, but that was okay. He had a secret weapon.

*

There was gentle light coming from Betty’s bedroom window, even though the rest of the house was in darkness. He had been sitting in the Andrews’ garage since shortly after dinner time. He’d made smalltalk with Mr Andrews in the lead-up to borrowing his ladder again, he’d watched as Mrs Cooper had come home, scanning the street and the yard. Jughead was impressed that it had been kept a closely guarded secret - Betty’s hospitalisation, Mr Cooper’s arrest, but then it probably helped that Alice ran the only paper in Riverdale. Quietly and quickly, he moved across the flowerbed which marked the property line between the Andrews and the Cooper houses, wincing as the rustling of the shrubbery sounded exceptionally loud in the still of the night. 

“Sh, sh, sh…” Jughead murmured to himself. He grit his teeth as he attempted to stand the ladder up against the side of the house as quietly as he could. Every sound was cacophonous to his ears; the thump as the top of the ladder connected to the window frame seemed to reverberate and his barely whispered, ‘shit’, made the air stop in his lungs. He counted slowly to twenty, waiting for the voice of Alice Cooper to threaten him with a call to Riverdale’s finest. When none was forthcoming, Jughead opened his eyes - fleetingly wondering when he’d even closed them - and cautiously made his way up to Betty’s bedroom window.

 

As he reached his destination, Jughead could see Betty through the gauzy curtain. She was seated at her vanity; her normally brushed-back hair sat in a messy bun on top of her head and her eyes stared listlessly at her reflection. Jughead lifted his hand to tap gently at the window, blushing when the noise seemed to startle Betty from her thoughts. The first thing he noticed as she lifted the curtain, was her hands.

Her nails were bitten, the skin around them red and torn. His heart and stomach twisted when he saw the familiar edging of medical tape curling around the base of her thumb and he could only imagine that her palms were just as raw, if not moreso.

“Jug?” Betty’s voice came to him softly through the panel of glass and he lifted his gaze to meet hers, taking in the furrow of confusion between her brows.

Jughead gave her a tiny smile even as she opened the window. “Hey, Betts.” He said softly, leaning against the ladder and her second-storey window like it was something he did on the average.

“You shouldn’t be here, Jughead,” she said. Her voice strained as she moved to try and block his view of the bedroom.

Jughead watched as her hands clenched and unclenched before she crossed her arms over her chest. He could see the tension in her shoulders, in the way she held herself - like she was trying to keep from flying apart. He looked up into her face, trying to hold her gaze even as she turned her head away; her red-rimmed eyes didn’t go unnoticed. “Well,” he muttered, pushing himself up and through the window. “You know me. I’m not one for doing things that I should.” He straightened up as he set both feet into the plush carpet and his breath caught in his throat.

Betty’s room had once been a bastion of all things feminine, from the delicate pink and green wallpaper covered in flowers, the white furniture and the white chintz dressings, and the shelf of dolls her father had purchased her whenever he’d been away, chasing a story. Now, Jughead’s gaze travelled the room slowly; taking in the torn wallpaper, the torn posters and broken pictures, the upturned bedside table.

“Betty?” Jughead stepped closer to her and stopped as the tell-tale crunch and splinter of glass came from beneath his heavy boot. “Shit, Betty, I’m…” he lifted his foot and looked down to see a picture of the Cooper family. The white frame broken, the glass panel fractured and splintering, the image it contained, ragged. “... sorry.” Jughead’s voice trailed off before he lifted his head to look at her.

She looked so small and broken that it took his breath away. He mentally started cursing himself for not having seen her pain sooner; for all that he considered himself one of Riverdale’s most - if not only - observant citizen, he had missed… this.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she whispered and this time Jughead noticed how her voice sounded husky... raw; like she’d been screaming for hours.

“Betty?”

“Mm, mm.” She shook her head and stepped back, and Jughead’s eyes widened at the cruch of glass underfoot. His gaze flicked to her feet and he released a breath to see her feet in a pair of slippers.

She was shaking her head, unable to meet his gaze and Jughead felt the tenuous threads that he’d been holding onto since Christmas, snap. He had respected her then, the pressure of the investigation into Jason Blossom’s death, his father’s arrest and subsequent offer to join the Serpents had meant he didn’t want to push her; it had damn near killed him to let her walk away, but he’d been hurt too. Heartache, he had learned, was not just an ailment of teen girls. Jughead reached for her, scooping her up in his arms. He ignored the tears that came thick and fast as Betty began to sob. Holding her against his chest, he moved to sit at the vanity, his hands cupping the back of head and running soothing circles on her back.

“I’m so sorry!” She moaned, burying her face in his neck, her own arms coming up and clinging around his neck tightly.

“Shh, it’s alright, Betts. I’m here… it’s okay, I’ve got you.” Jughead murmured, pressing his lips to her temple. “I’ve got you.”

Jughead wasn’t sure how long they’d sat at the vanity, but it had been long enough that his legs had fallen asleep and he’d seen the lights of Archie’s dad’s truck flash against the side of the house through the still open window. It had been long enough for Betty to sob the whole, sordid tale into his shirt, her body trembling as she recounted the accusatory glares of the doctors and her mother when they asked her how long she had been taking the medication and where she’d gotten it from. Of the way the Sheriff Keller and two of his deputies had searched the house from top to bottom and found prescription pads and bottles of pills in her father’s locked den, of the way he’d laughed at Betty’s accusations and looked to Alice, blaming her past for Betty’s spiralling behaviour. How it had been her father’s hissed, “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, does it, Alice?” that had her mother stepping out and standing up for Betty (and Polly), before changing the locks. 

“He’s getting out, Jug.” Betty whispered, her voice barely above a whisper. “Sheriff Keller found out today, he must have put The Register up as collateral for his bail. He’s…” she stopped and closed her eyes.

Jughead didn’t know what to say, so he gripped her tighter. Following the trail of destruction around her room, he could picture in his mind’s eye her initial reaction to the news. How she’d run up the stairs to the privacy (safety) of her room, slammed and locked the door and begun the systematic destruction of everything her father had ever given her.

“What did your mom say?”

Betty shifted, pressing her face into his shoulder. “I’m so tired, Jug,” she murmured softly, avoiding the question entirely.

Jughead shifted on the small vanity chair and tightened his grip around her. “Just rest, Betts. I’ve got you.” He stood, cradling her to his chest before carrying and placing her on the bed. He removed her slippers and pulled the blankets up around her.

“Don’t leave, please?” 

She sounded so small, Jughead felt his heart squeeze. Shaking his head, he sat beside her, pressing himself against the headboard of her bed. “I’ll stay. Can’t promise I won’t need the bathroom soon though,” he teased lightly. He watched as she nodded, curling up beside him, her face pressing into his hip as he ran his long fingers through her hair, soothing her to sleep.


End file.
